Recently at TAC (Thursday art club) the artists made a group still life display with the theme of “Botanicals”. I love it when we do these collaborative displays as you get a real mix of interesting and unusual items and everyone approaches the theme differently. For this theme I chose to create a botanical artwork using mixed media (collage, various pens and mark making materials and acrylic paints) and negative space painting techniques.

I have been inspired by the work of Helen Wells recently as well as other expressive abstract artists that use mixed media techniques. I seem to be drawn to symbols currently- and the simplification of objects to create an other-wordly aesthetic. Im drawn to artworks that are exploring negative space, vessels, nature, figurative and animal symbolism as well as artworks that are simplifying and abstracting images so that they are still recognisable as objects but they transform almost into the idea of an object and what it means, rather than a pure representation of the object itself. Please check out some of the artists work I have been inspired by recently below: